The Gathering Storm

“Where did you learn to speak Wendish?” asked Sanglant.

“In our tribe, we keep slaves from the western people. I can speak the language of all the slaves of my tribe. This way, they obey the begh and his mother. There is less trouble.”

“On their left shoulder they bear scars,” said Breschius. “The wolf’s muzzle, the mark of the Kirshat clan.”

“How did you come to be a slave?” asked Sanglant. “You wear the markings of a shaman. How can such a powerful man become a slave?”

“I refused to heed the call of the Pechanek begh when he calls for war against the western lands. I tell—told—the war council that Kirshat clan should not follow that Pechanek whore, Bulkezu. But they send their sons to him because they fear him. As punishment for bad advice, they sell—sold—me and my sisters’ sons into slavery. Three have died. These six, the strong ones, survive.”

“Bulkezu!” Sanglant laughed. “Bulkezu will trouble you no more. I hold him as my prisoner, here in this camp.”

The old shaman nodded, unmoved by this revelation. “The spirits told me of Bulkezu’s fate.” He turned to his nephews, speaking in the Quman language. Two spat on the ground. A third laughed; the last two grinned. There was something uncomfortable about the merry gleam in their expressions, the crinkling of eyes, and the gleeful baring of teeth as they contemplated the downfall of their enemy.

“You are a great lord, in truth,” added Gyasi, “to humble Bulkezu. But you wear no griffin wings. How can you defeat the man who killed two griffins? Bulkezu is still greater than you.”

“We shall see. I march east to hunt griffins.”

The shaman’s eyes widened. He tapped his forehead twice on a clenched hand, touched both shoulders, and patted his chest over his breastbone, across a tattoo depicting a bareheaded man copulating with a crested griffin. “That is a fearsome path, great lord. You may die.”

Sanglant smiled, although he had long since ceased to find his mother’s curse amusing. “No creature male nor female may kill me. I do not fear the griffins. Can you guide me across the grasslands to the nesting grounds of the griffins?”

“Nay, great lord. Mine is the power of the wolf, to stalk the ibex and the deer. I am not a griffin fighter. The secrets of the nesting grounds have been lost to our people. No warrior in three generations among the Kirshat tribe has worn griffin wings. We are a weak clan now. Our mothers die young. Our beghs have forgotten how to listen to the wisdom of old women. That is why the war council did not refuse when Bulkezu demanded soldiers for his army.”

A shout rose from the guard on watch, followed by the call of the horn, three Mats, signifying that an enemy approached. Soldiers hurried out of the shade where they had been resting, lifting shields, hoisting bows or spears, and headed for the vulnerable gate. The slaves looked up, but did not rise. Sanglant jogged over to the guard tower that flanked the gate. Up on the walls facing northeast, men gestured and pointed. Fulk and Hathui followed him while Sergeant Cobbo herded the remaining slaves back to the cell where Blessing broke her silence and began to cry out again.

“Let me out! Let me out! Anna! I want you! Daddy!”

Sanglant clambered up on the wall to the crumbling guard tower with Fulk and Hathui beside him. The pair of guards on duty—Sibold and Fremen—muttered to each other as they watched. They had marked the riders because of dust, although the troop was still too far away to make out numbers and identifying marks.

Below, in the gate, a dozen men were pulling back the bridge of planks thrown over the pit. Shadow concealed the depths of that steep-sided ditch where Bulkezu was imprisoned. Was Bulkezu moving along the base of the pit, alert to the new development? Already Sanglant heard the unmistakable flutter and whir of wings, faint but distinctive. He shaded his eyes as he squinted westward at the riders approaching the fort through rolling grasslands that stretched out north and west to the horizon.

“Quman,” he said to Fulk.

Fulk shouted down into the courtyard. “Get Lewenhardt up here!” He shaded his eyes, peering at the cloud of dust. “Are you sure, my lord prince? I can’t see well enough.”

“I hear wings.”

“Sibold,” ordered Fulk, “sound the horn again. I want every man along the wall and a barrier thrown up at the gate to reinforce the ditch. Quman.”

Sibold swore merrily before blowing three sharp bats on the horn. Half the men had assembled and the rest came running, buckling on helmets or fastening leather brigandines around their torsos. Above the clatter and shouting Sanglant heard his daughter’s muffled shrieks from the cell where he had ordered her shut in.